Monday 8 September 2008

If you have a garden, I'm not sure what its like. Perhaps its beautifully kept and wonderfully neat. Maybe it's a riot of colour in all the different seasons attracting envying glances from people as they pass by. Our garden isn't quite that way. Much of the year its not so much a symphony in green or a patchwork of colour as a blanket of brown. The weeds thrive, of course, and there are one or two hardy shrubs that survive despite all sorts of neglect. But is not what you'd call exciting.

All of which made it all the more surprising when I spotted our uninvited guest the other day. There it was in the earthy patch at the bottom of the garden where the trees overhang and the grass cuttings get dumped. A beautiful, bright, healthy yellow primrose. I was so surprised that I even had to go and check that it was indeed growing and hadn't just been blown there from someone else's well tended garden. But no - there it was. Somehow, one day when no-one was looking a seed had been dropped, it had taken root and now the jolly yellow flowers were there to cheer up our garden. If only I had planted it I could have taken some rare gardening credit for it - but I didn't! It felt like a real bonus - or a blessing, I suppose.

'Blessing' is one of those religious words that lots of people use without even thinking about it. 'Oh bless' they say, when something touches them. Or perhaps its 'bless you' when a colleague's sneeze shatters the air and rattles the window panes in the office. Those particular words date back to the dark days of the plague when a sneeze might be the onset of something terrible. In fact, a blessing is some unexpected goodness that God brings into our lives just because he feels like it - a bit like my random primrose.

The happiest people in the world seem to be those who've learnt to 'count their blessings'. Its not that they make things up and pretend that all sorts of good things have happened to them. It s more that they keep their eyes and ears open and learn to appreciate the smallest things. A kind gesture here, the answer to a problem there, something lost that's found or forgotten that's remembered - all these things are logged as blessings and added to the tally.

'Count your blessings' - sounds like such old-fashioned advice doesn't it? There's an old lady who always told me to do it. Her bent back and her stiff joints meant that it was always an agonisingly slow trip from the fireplace to the front door and back again. Mind you, once we were there, sitting by the fire, she would always say it "count your blessings" with a sparkle in her eyes. How's your tally doing this week?